The Connected Car: Driving Technology

Pandora started on just the web, but the vision was larger than that. They wanted to redefine radio. The promise of the the internet for radio is personalization. The Pandora service caters to individual’s taste. This experience should translate everywhere our listeners want to hear radio – and that means in the car.

How do we get data to cars and let them communicate quickly and easily (and cheaply).

What motivated sync technology?
It started at just a hands free device. Why don’t we give it an aux jack, then why don’t we give it a usb jack, then why don’t we hook it to a phone. It became bigger than just hands free. So we changed the way we looked at the problem from that way instead. It started as something fun. Why don’t we find an app that works well on the phone and just for fun bring it to the car.

It was hard because the development cycles in the automotive industry were longer than the typical cycles in electronics.

4G will change the game and open up the bandwidth to be able to do more things. It’s not the speed, but the bandwidth with which data can get to a vehicle. Just like people created apps for smart phones, you will see this type of thing (categories and products and services) for 4G. It changes the payload.

We’ll be seeing a lot more devices delivering internet that didn’t before. It isn’t inconceivable that all of our appliances will have that connection.

What are the things you’ll have to do differently with all this mobile technology?Safety is important, but they want it to be seamless as possible. Developers need to consider making apps for the vehicle in the most responsible way possible.